10 shocking elegance mistakes that happened in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Can you believe it?
That movie is one of the most sophisticated and elegant movies out there.
How could Audrey Hepburn do this to us? Find out in this video.
My dear elegant ladies, welcome back to another video. Believe it or not,
there are many elegance mistakes happening that I really think that we could learn from.
If you watch until the end,
you will also find out the true reason to why I am making this video today.
I want to jump straight into my number one, the walk of shame,
going home after a night out,
doing the walk of shame in the morning.
But I'm also talking about the walk of shame that a lot of ladies who might find
it difficult to know when to say stop.
And they might end up going home like Audrey Hepburn does here at dawn,
when it's light outside,
when the postman is out delivering the morning newspaper or people are getting
dressed to go to work. Being out so late,
it's maybe not the most elegant thing we can do to ourselves and it's not really
a nice sight. If you have a look here,
doesn't this just looks a little bit odd to you,
doesn't all her elegance appearance just vanished out of that door when you see
that this does not look aligned with this lady's beautiful appearance?
And then she's there walking home early morning and God knows where she's been.
I always say,
go home when the party is at it's best and people don't understand what I mean.
I basically mean, leave before the place gets empty,
leave before people start to leave. You want to be one of the first to leave,
not one of the last.
Number two and I am going to talk about this iconic scene of Audrey Hepburn
eating her breakfast in front of Tiffany's.
She's pulling out this coffee in the paper cup.
Paper cup coffee is not elegant.
I've said it.
Sophisticated people in certain parts of the world are not drinking paper cup coffee.
There are certain cultures that do like paper cup coffee and I'm sorry to say
but it's not very elegant.
Coffee should be enjoyed in the proper porcelain cup, sitting down,
not walking around, not rushing around,
not thinking that you are Sex In The City chic by having a Starbucks in your hand.
That is not elegant. So Audrey is definitely not being elegant here.
And then she's pulling out this croissant, eating it on the street, walking,
eating, drinking coffee. What is that about?
Ladies, this is not elegant and our society is so fast-paced today that actually,
I think this is pretty normal for New York City.
So also pretty normal for London. I can tell you one thing.
I have lived in many different countries and I've also traveled quite a lot in
my life, and you can really see in what places this is acceptable.
And you can notice that in certain other cultures and places,
this is not acceptable whatsoever. There's nothing sophisticated about it.
So one of the things you should really stop doing is to eat on the street and
drink on the go. Now number three, this is very random and first of all,
who drinks milk these days? I hope nobody.
Milk is not really chic to drink because cow milk? Eeew!
But what actually lacks class in this scene is that she serves herself milk in a
champagne coupe. This really shows laziness. This really shows that maybe,
she's not educated. You really need to serve the drink in the correct glass.
If you're going to drink milk, then you pour it in a regular glass.
If you're going to drink champagne and pour it in a champagne glass or champagne coupe.
Now, number four, oversharing personal information to a stranger.
She had just met her neighbor.
He had to come into her house because he needed something.
He stayed for a few minutes extra and they started to have a conversation.
And then she goes into such incredible detail about her life and some random story
that actually would make a stranger feel pretty awkward.
And having good manners is about not making other people feel awkward.
That's why we don't want to be oversharing. Well,
actually not only because of that reason,
we also don't want to be oversharing because we don't
want to put ourselves in a difficult position.
When you overshare, you always shoot yourself in the foot.
Things will backfire at some point. Now, number five,
and this came a bit like a shock when I saw it the first time.
All of a sudden, Audrey Hepburn from being this sophisticated,
confident woman goes into becoming this man.
Why would she do that and why would she also do it in front of another man?
He truly looked shocked and I just really did not think that this serves her,
doesn't serve her appearance. She's wearing a beautiful hat,
this gorgeous outfit. She looks incredibly elegant.
And then she does a move like that.
And I see this happen so many times with women who can look incredibly chic and
they look so put together, and then they start doing something or act somehow
masculine, or do some form of quite severe
elegance mistakes that make you feel quite shocked.
And you can see a very strong dis-alignment from what it is that they're
portraying to how they actually are.
And what we want to achieve is that we want to have a balanced alignment so that
people are not thinking, Oh, I have a positive impression on this lady.
And then the next second, you know what? I was wrong.
Number six. This is where her neuroticism comes into play because Holly Golightly,
all of a sudden, climbs into this stranger's house while okay, it's a neighbor.
She's being very intrusive. She is catching him in a very awkward moment,
when he's laying in bed naked.
I think he probably had just sex with his woman who left his apartment.
So she climbs in,
totally puts him at surprise being intrusive and just forces her way into his
apartment, without any form of invitation. Again,
we don't want to make people feel awkward and we want to make people feel good
in our company. Why put somebody in the spot like this?
This is not a correct behavior. It's not acting with manners.
I also think it looks a little bit desperate.
It's certainly not elegant to look desperate. Now number seven,
she puts her legs up while smoking indoors.
Why would you put your legs up on the table as a lady?
Ladies don't do that. What if he can have a peak in what's going on down there?
Really, nobody puts their legs on the table, not even a man, not even a woman,
not even a child. That's just bad manners and quite unhygienic.
Now, number eight. Again, this is where we can see she's a little bit neurotic,
gets into bed with a totally random stranger because he's still a stranger.
They've known each other for less than 24 hours and she seems vulnerable so she
needs some TLC of a man, let's put it that way.
So she gets into bed with him and she also asks if she can get into bed with him.
What can we say? An elegant lady will definitely not do this.
Women like that do actually exist and they are quite huntresses.
They're not shy to invite themselves into men and the company of a man.
Women like that can actually be quite successful sometimes in the elite social scene,
but I know from experience, having seen these type of women that they oftentimes
don't get a very positive impression,
like a long-lasting positive impression with a man.
A woman who maybe also makes herself a bit like an easy target this way that
she invites her into bed with a man,
makes a man just write her off as an easy lay. Not everybody,
but a majority, I mean primal instincts, primal minds,
men are very primal in that sense.
They need a more difficult woman so women shouldn't be doing a move like this.
This is a big no, no, and a big elegant no as well.
Number nine, so here,
she's throwing a party in her apartment and there's loads of people,
and she has invited her neighbor to come over.
Her neighbor thought that they were just going to meet two of them,
which is okay, fine.
She didn't give him enough explanation on the invitation to what he was actually invited to.
She doesn't even open the door.
Some random guests open the door and this is really bad hostessing because
when you are in your own residence hosting,
you always have to welcome your guests yourself.
So the host and the hostess has to welcome their own guests.
You cannot just like be doing other things and running around,
and having your guests arrive and being a little bit lost and kind they have to
figure things out by themselves.
So this is really bad manners and as you can see,
she's like still getting ready and I mean,
who is still getting ready when you have a full house of people?
That's just bad time management. Number 10 and the last one.
But this is actually going to have two elegance mistakes in the one.
First of all,
why are these people drinking champagne or alcohol in paper cups?
Very unelegant
You definitely want to serve your guests with proper glasses and if you have to
serve champagne in plastic,
make it at least a plastic champagne glass and so on.
I'm not really pro plastic here so it's better if you serve in crystal.
Let it break if needed but at least,
you are being the most elegant hostess that you can be. But now,
this point was actually not only about the paper cups,
this was about her setting fire to a hat with her cigarette.
And it's about being so neglectless, about being so kind of carefree,
and being so full up in your head that
you actually not noticing what's going around you.
And there are people like that and those types can be quite frustrating to deal with.
Smoking indoors is already not very elegant and then,
you don't know what's going on with your cigarettes
that you're setting fire to something.
That does not say elegance to me whatsoever.
A lot of elegance and etiquette mistakes happened in this movie. Actually,
the picture we have of Audrey Hepburn in this movie, this sophisticated, elegant,
incredibly chic woman is actually not acting that way whatsoever.
But I think, we really need to understand one thing
is that nobody is perfect in this world.
Audrey Hepburn is not perfect. I am not perfect.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is not perfect.
We are all just humans and humans always make mistakes,
but I don't want to strive for perfection,
and I don't think you should do either. I think,
we all should strive for improving those things that are really holding us back,
those things that are sabotaging for us.
But I don't think we should become obsessed,
perfectionist that everything has to be exactly perfect and this way.
Otherwise, we are trashy, we are not elegant,
we are bad people and so on and that's not what I want to teach on this channel.
I would hate for spreading a message that we all have to be these
picture-perfect little ladies,
all clones of each other with zero personality because we all have to be so perfect.
And that's the thing, when you are not being perfect,
you are actually giving yourself a little bit of charm,
a little bit of personality, a little bit of spice sometimes.
So I think it would be quite good to cut ourselves some slack and then just
enjoy the ride of what this elegant life gives us. And ladies,
if you want to learn more about being a good guest,
then watch my video on guest etiquette so that you know how to behave when you
arrive to someone's home. Now I will see you in that video.